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Month: January 2015

I will admit to something . I have gained a bit of weight in the last months of 2014. Part of it was the simple good food of it all , part of it was me being away from home and dealing with a mad stressful situation and part of it was nothing is harder than working out in the cold when you are already unmotivated by circumstances. so now the 10 lbs I was trying to lose has risen to 25.

I have had a hard time motivating myself . I have the a fitbit and a Jawbone UP24 ( yes I have them both) and I invite people to add me to their teams because competition does help me but that does not help with the other thing. The other thing is eating , specifically boredom eating. I look at women with tiny tight bodies and think I can do this then I am confronted with fudgy brownies and I decide that it is overrated and unfeminine to be muscular. in other words I fill my self with crap . literally and figuratively ..sorry.

I then thought about the times when I lost a great deal of weight . the first was when I was 26 and lost 60 lbs in about 4 months. yes. 4 months. How? How did I do this feat of magic that left people that had seen me in month one scratching their heads at month 4 ? it was hate. yes. the most toxic thing ever . HATE. I found out that my ex was a cheater and a liar ( both things are exclusive) and I decided that I had to be so hot that he would want to kill himself over me. it backfired because he actually kidnapped me and trying to force me into a marriage because hate is a bad thing but the point i started with was that I did lose 60 lbs in 4 months.

The second time was spite. I had lost weight and had gone from a size 16 to a 10 and someone asked me if I was a size 20! A FUCKING 20! So I immediately lost an additional 20 lbs and landed in a size 4. take that bitch!

So i thought about those things and realized that I am not a difficult motivation person I just need something that makes me dig my heels in . and this time I decided that if I can do these things , that I have to stop saying that I am unmotivated. I am very motivated. and If I can do these things for hate and spite I can do them for me. I can decide that I love myself as much as I hated my lying cheating EX and the woman at the store. Here is some of my tricks .

Mantra ; yes it is hokey. It is also effective.”If I could do it for them I can do it for me” has stopped me from diving head long into late night eating more than once.

substitution. I have to say this , JIMACA IS NOT FRENCH FRIES!!! If one more website suggests that I eat a sliced Jimaca when I want fries I will scream. That having been said if you must eat having something friendly to eat is helpful. like olives or pickles.

affirmations . Mantra’s bigger hokier brother but again effective. a nice lively round of ” I is good , I is smart , I is important ” really does help you not to finish off a pound of … well a pound of anything really. eat by the pound can’t be healthy.

These have been my things to replace the whole hate/spite thing and so far it has helped me tremendously.

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This month I have seen a lot of things about feminism both pro and con. I have seen people villainizing women for saying that they aren’t feminists and villainizing women for saying that they are.
I would imagine that one of the more difficult things about being a woman of power in Hollywood it is people wanting you to fit in a box. Take for instance Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer Aniston is one of those people that the world of the Internet and celebrity Watchers has deemed victim. Every cover you see Jennifer Aniston on she is portrayed as this woman who is desperately trying to build a family, find a man, and generally getting over this terrible break up that shattered her life. And anytime that she says anything to the contrary people get downright ugly. I was reading today about how she isn’t sure what she wants she doesn’t feel like feminism should be this hard and if she decides she doesn’t want to continue to be pressured or judged on the fact that she doesn’t have children. And then you go down to the comments and oh my god, the world is not happy with her declaration that it is OK to be childless. On the other side of that there is Kelly Cuoco who was villainized as well this week for saying that she is not that feminist. In a magazine article she expressed that she enjoys being a traditional woman with her significant other and that she has never been that big of a feminist anyway. And oh my god once again the comments blew up.
But here is the problem with all of these things be it Jennifer Aniston, Kaley Cuoco, Angelina Jolie or any other female the fact of the matter is that however you see yourself and the role of feminism is yours to see. I am often distressed by the amount of women that attack other women for differing views. Let’s take the case of Jennifer Aniston vs Angelina Jolie. Jennifer Aniston has been deemed victim and is only allowed to live in that role. I read the comments today about how they used to feel sorry for her and now that she’s making some big stand she’s just bitter. What I’m reading is I’ve decided that you are and telling me you’re not sad and that I can’t be superior to you in that way is making me angry. On the other side Angelina Jolie has been deemed a villain for stealing a man. So Jenny is a poor little lamb, Angie is a she devil and what is the opinion of the only person in this that actually cheated. Oh yeah ,that’s Brad , we love Brad. That in a nutshell is nutshell, is that I have with all of this arguing back and forth about feminism and everything else that has to do with women. We act as if women are supposed to have everything figured out, be sexy, smart, and never ending light and if and when they stray from that they are monsters. Men on the other side are always shielded by boys will be boys.
I am a feminist, I am a female, I am a mother, I am a woman, I am flawed and I am fallible , because a, I want people to pay attention to this, just like my non decumbent urinator counterparts I’m human. Feminism shouldn’t be this hard on women. It is not a choice between being a mother or career womana career womana choice between being A modern woman and a doormat. It is not a choice between being girly or being feminist. I am both. I have the ability. I think we need to redefine what it means to be a feminist. Feminism should mean I have the right to do what I want with my life. If that means I want you to be a stay at home mom that gets up in the morning and makes breakfast for her family and does not stretch yourself in any other way except to make a happy family, that should be ok. If I decide to run a business and never have children and never get married that should be ok. If I decide to run a marathon, make the world’s best pancakes, be sexually free or decide that I am never having sex with a member of any gender, that should be ok! We have got to stop being these Mean Girls looking for ways to hurt each other and realize that feminism is just women being allowed to choose just like the boys.

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All world is full of challenges. Both literal and metaphorical. And in my experience challenges weather real or imaginary are good for creating drama. I know what you’re thinking drama isn’t good, but I would counter with the argument that without drama you will not have change. When things are calm or stagnant we tend to fall into A rut. But when we have drama, something that makes us feel like we have to move, we usually rise to the challenge.
Sometimes in life we have to challenge ourselves, or create our own drama. Like we did when we were teenagers and nothing was wrong, but the world was ending. Back then we were great at creating drama. Everything was a crisis. Every day at school, every party that we were invited to you or not invited to, every day was filled to the brim with drama. And no matter how you look at your teenage years you have to admit that it was a time of great change. And thank God it’s over.
But sometimes, like when you are trying to make a great physical change you need to create some drama or to take on a challenge. There are several workout challenges in both app form and in online forums. The 30 day squat challenge, the 30 days AB challenge and the 30 day plank challenge are all very popular.
There is also an app called dietbet that’s has you put your money where your mouth is, almost literally. With debt you compete with other people for actual dollars. My pleasure anywhere from $5 to $50.00 and you are pooled with other people making a pot, sometimes very high into the thousands and split among the winners at the end of the challenge. Anywhere between 30 days and 6 months. That is definitely something to look into if you really want to motivate yourself into better shape and you are a money motivated type of person.
Whichever way you are motivated, bit through gamification or competition I say starting now you should definitely create some drama for yourself to help you push to that next level. Myself, I have decided to run a 5k in the spring and using the app called doublerun I have begun a training program that should have me at least able to finish my first 5k by the end of March. I will keep everyone informed as to my progress as well as my results with the app.

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Biggest obstacle to my fitness is motivation to move. I am NOT a huge eater, nor am I particularly into very bad for you food. And when I get in working out I am the master of inertia, once I’m, I will keep moving. But and this is a big butt, haha, I do have a problem when I stop. At first I can convince myself that I will to start again but i do allow small obstacles to get in my way. I have decided to invest in a fitness tracker to help with that part of motivation. After several days of consideration and full disclosure finding out that I could not locate a Samsung gear fit due to the fact they were oversold during the holidays I chose to go with A jawbone up24. So the jawbone up24 , I am positive you are aware is a fitness tracker essentially. It measures your steps your food intake and your sleep habits. It is integratable with several different fitness apps and websites and so far is fairly functional. The newest round of fitness trackers of which the jawbone up24 is not one, also measure your heart rate. I am so far fairly pleased with this one. Although my walking in earnest begins next week this has given me an idea of how much I walk on a normal day, as well as including of inactivity monitor which you can set to remind you at varying intervals that you haven’t moved in certain amount of time. I have mine set at the lowest which is 15 minutes. I have it currently set also for standard goal of 8 hours of sleep and 10000 steps per day. I’m hoping to push this to you about 15,000 steps per day, but that is a blog for another day.